Patricia Fernandez-Kelly

Senior Lecturer in Sociology

Patricia Fernandez-Kelly holds a joint position as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Sociology and as a Research Associate in the Office of Population Research. Her field of interest is international development with an emphasis on immigration, race, ethnicity, and gender. She is the author of For We Are Sold, I and My People: Women and Industry in Mexico's Frontier, listed as a favorite title by Contemporary Sociology, a book which has never gone out of print since 1983 when it was first published. With filmmaker Lorraine Gray, she produced the Emmy-Award winning documentary "The Global Assembly Line," which focuses on the effects of economic globalization on working women and their families in the Philippines, Mexico, and the U.S. Her latest book (edited with Jon Shefner, University of Tennessee) is Out of the Shadows: Political Action and Informal Economy in Latin America (Penn State University Press 2006). Her current law-related work includes two projects: (a) in collaboration with the Latin American Legal Defense and Education Fund (LALDEF) research among Mexican and Guatemalan immigrants towards the creation of a legal advocacy clinic; and (b) in collaboration with Hispanic Americans for Progress (HAP), a not-for-profit organization created and maintained by long-term inmates at the New Jersey State Prison, research and advocacy focusing on the American prison system.

Publications:

"The Moral Monster: Recasting Honor and Propriety in Prison." Forthcoming in Latinos in a Global Age (Renato Rosaldo, Editor, Blackwell).

Out of the Shadows: Political Action and the Informal Economy in Latin America (Edited with Jon Shefner, University of Tennessee). Penn State University Press (2005).